It is not just the people who print racing diaries who are starting to fret about the non-appearance of next year's fixture list. The British Horseracing Authority has promised to publish the full programme by 23 September, nearly two months later than normal, which might have seemed reasonable if they were launching a full-on assault on the 1,500-meeting programme. Yet now it appears that the next list will bear a striking resemblance to the old one, so why the delay in the first place?

One explanation that seems to fit is that the BHA wanted to be seen to "do something" in the face of a sharp drop in the levy yield from off-course betting, but has now been forced to accept that, when it comes to fixtures, its options are embarrassingly limited. Early suggestions that the BHA would do away with all of the 250 or so meetings that it "owns" – many of which were net contributors to the levy – have been replaced by more modest estimates that the drop will be no more than 150. And if some tracks are prepared to raid their reserves to keep fixtures, it could well be that just 80 or so disappear in 2011.

With levy funding for prize money predicted to drop by as much as 25%, a 5% cut in the programme seems wholly inadequate. Spreading the cash that remains ever more thinly is hardly likely to produce the sort of competitive, high-quality racing that might persuade punters to have a bet and, perhaps, actually reverse the decline in the levy. Just a couple of years after Ladbrokes' famous "high-roller" pushed the yield to £115m, there is a sense that the sport's administrators have all but given up on the levy and will do little or nothing to arrest its decline.

There is, of course, an argument that they gave up on it a long time ago, despite the introduction of a levy based on bookies' profits, which seemed to offer a reasonable incentive to both sides to improve the product for punters and maximise the yield.

All major racing industries ultimately depend on gambling for a substantial part of their funding, yet few of the BHA's senior executives appear to understand even the basics of betting, beyond the deeply held belief that bookmakers owe them much more than they currently receive. How to boost that income, though, is seen as a matter for the bookies alone, rather than a task that requires some co-operation.

So while it might be argued that a two-month delay to the fixture list is not the end of the world, it is what this implies about the state of the sport's administration that is the real concern. The BHA seems to lack both the imagination to develop and sustain a long-term funding strategy, and the power to conduct effective crisis management. It is hardly a combination that will fill anyone with hope.

If racing is to prosper, betting is the only realistic option to provide the finance. If the BHA is still tinkering with the fixture list in mid-September, it suggests that it is as far away from accepting that fact as ever. When there are senior executives on chunky six‑figure salaries plus bonus, the sport deserves so much more.